And despite these combinations not being typical in America, they aren't necessarily bad! In fact, I now actually quite like the taste of sweet potatoes on pizza with a cheesey mozarella crust. It is a bit off-putting at a first glance, if I'm honest, but it does taste good! I like to chalk it all up to the unique style of Korean food!
There has to be something about the style and richness of the food here that possesses you to stand in line for an hour just to eat a pancake, or to follow a restaurant on Instagram, or to make friends with the servers because you come so often and the food is that good. Each town in the countryside is known for a particular food that is cooked in a region-specific way. A couple years ago, I went to Ulsan, which is about an hour-and-a-half outside of Seoul. My Korean family took me, and we stayed with my little brother's best friend and his family. We tried the classic Korean rice dish called Bibimbap, at a restaurant that is so well known that there was a wall of Korean celebrities that had gone to the same restaurant we did. The Bibimbap at this restaurant was distinctly different from (and better than!) any other I had tasted. But I had my eye on a particular delicacy that I had told my Korean Mom about several years before: Sannakji. Live octopus.
When I was last in Ulsan with my Korean Mom, we all went for dinner at a restaurant she had chosen. We sat on heated floors with our shoes off on a gray and cloudy day. The elders ordered the Sannakji chopped for the table.
